The present invention relates to a method of managing contracts for licensed program use contracts and a management system, and more specifically relates to a method which manages contracts for licensed program use contracts utilized by computers, and to a system capable of utilizing the method.
In a contract for using a program, a user of the program (described as "a user" hereafter) is licensed to use the program by a licensor of the program (described as "a licensor" hereafter) perpetually, or for a limited period.
In a case where a user is licensed for a limited period, for example, conventionally, a utilization permission code which includes information such as an utilization term of validity and an ID number of a computer which is allowed to use the program is put in the program as a code. When the user uses the program, he inputs the utilization permission code which is compared with the one in the program. Thus managing the contract for using the licensed program is operated in this manner in order to avoid the program from being illegally used.
However, with the above mentioned method of managing contracts for licensed program use, conformance to the contracts depends only on the user, and the licensor can not grasp an accurate utilizing situation of the program without making the user uncomfortable.
As an example, if the licensor requests that the program be deleted from the computer because of the expiration of the contract period, the licensor can not confirm whether the user has actually deleted the program. Thus, the possibility of illegal use of the program, such as the user illegally keeping the program or illegally changing the expiration date of the contract in the copied program can not be eliminated. Furthermore illegal use of the program during the contract period can be unlimited.